


How could you not be a little in love?

by vague_ambition



Series: Les Amis de l'LGBT [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eponine gets out, Eponine-centric, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Pre-University, Robbery, TW: non consensual sexual acts discussed, TW: sexual assault mention, The Thenardiers really suck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 03:37:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10936194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vague_ambition/pseuds/vague_ambition
Summary: A short summary of Eponine's shitty childhood, and how she went from a shitty childhood to a somewhat decent adulthood, with the help of Marius Pontmercy.Alternatively titled: How could you not admire Eponine?





	How could you not be a little in love?

**Author's Note:**

> This came about because I was trying to write a piece in this series developing Cosette and Eponine's relationship and I ended up going on for 1000+ words about Eponine's childhood and how Marius factored in. Anyway, consider this a prequel to that work? 
> 
> Warning: While it is not described in detail, there is definite discussion of the Thenardiers attempting to force Eponine to participate in sexual acts as part of their financial schemes. She is most definitely underage at the time. There is also some discussion of (consensual) underage sex. Nothing is really described.

Of course Éponine was in love with Marius when she began university. It was impossible for her to imagine a universe where she was not at least a little bit in love with the boy. They had been neighbors since Éponine was eight or nine years old – so less than a year after Cosette had been rescued from the Thenardiers by her adoptive father. Éponine’s parents had lost the inn in a turn of what they called ‘bad luck’ and had moved to the only ‘business venture’ they had remaining – a house in a higher end neighborhood that they had somehow managed to gain ownership of. They maintained a proper semblance, but Éponine soon saw the three storied Victorian as her own personal hell. These were not the days of the inn, where the guests were rambunctious and annoying, but left her to herself. She was no longer allowed to safely run about the halls of the place she thought of as home. Her father’s visitors – and his business ventures – took a turn for the sinister in that place. His guests began leering at her, even though she was not yet ten. She knew she, and other things she did not want to think about, were being discussed in her father’s locked office.

Éponine’s only way out of the leers and her parents’ attempt to include her in their business was the idea of appearance – the Thenardiers would never pursue her if she ran into the yard, because they didn’t want the neighbors to become suspicious about the lifestyle they lead. Éponine soon took to climbing the biggest tree in the yard and reading there, an attempt to shut out her reality. It had been during such an instance that she had met Marius for the first time.

He had been a gangly, freckly boy, and had been all too delighted to realize that his next door neighbor was only a year younger than him. He had quickly explained to her that he lived with his grandfather and went to a strict private school, so was rather lonely. Éponine explained that she didn’t know anyone at school and didn’t like her parents much, knowing already not to instinctively trust people.

As Éponine got older, she trusted people less and less and became more and more afraid of what her parents’ business may mean for her. She was eleven when they forced her to help them scam people, twelve when they forced her to aid them in her first robbery. She went to school from eight to two thirty and from three to six, she practiced lock-picking and knife work and got to know her father’s “work buddies.” Éponine, like many people her age, took gymnastics classes and began to take exercise classes in her spare time. Unlike most, her parents only paid for the gymnastics classes so she was a better burglar, and got her into kickboxing (and regular boxing) so she could win in a fight against any rivals. She was thirteen when they first suggested she get to know his “work buddies” in a more biblical sense. Not coincidentally, she was thirteen the first time she spent the night on Marius’s couch. She was thirteen the first time she told anyone what happened inside the Thenardier house.

She and Marius had a system worked out, a route from Éponine’s window to the nearby tree branch to Marius’s roof to his window. The burglary training was quite helpful in this. They had a signal; if Marius absolutely couldn’t have Éponine sneak in, he would close his curtains. As far as she knew, though, Marius had never closed his curtains. She became adept at figuring out which of her parents’ friends were comfortable with fucking a thirteen year old, and cleared out accordingly. It got harder as she got older. Her parents became less patient with her sudden disappearances. Furthermore, the older she got, the less qualms her parents’ friends had about paying for sexual favors from a kid. She walked a thin line, never sticking around long enough for the final act, but keeping her parents happy enough that they didn’t pursue her when she did disappear, and most importantly, happy enough that they didn’t take any frustration out on her younger siblings. She dreaded the day that they would divert their attention away from a difficult now-fifteen year old and pay attention to the barely-twelve Azelma. She began to collect evidence, take pictures on her brand new iPhone that she bought with stolen money, and made sure Marius had copies of everything.

She spent as much time as she could with Marius. They sat next to each other on his king bed, doing homework and quizzing one another on completely different subjects. She kept her laptop at his house, so that her parents couldn’t steal it, and with it, her best chance at doing homework. He held her when she cried about going back home, and she helped take notes while he desperately searched to find some information about his parents. He helped with the research to find out what exactly it would take to take down not just Éponine’s parents, but every single one of their associates. Éponine knew that if she was going to present a court with evidence of her parents’ wrongdoings, she wouldn’t be safe unless she managed to get every single one of their friends. She also knew that if her parents were not locked up for a significant period of time, she was signing at least her own death warrant. She had to get enough evidence to get them convicted of enough different crimes to add up their prison time. In short, she was playing a long game.

She lost her virginity when she was fifteen to the son of one of her parents’ friends, a boy two years older than her named Montparnasse. He was pretty, and he gave her cigarettes and looked at her like she was a person, unlike everyone else who passed through the doors of their house. It was consensual, which was basically her goal for her first time. Afterwards, he had told her that he thought he might be gay and she wished that it had been with Marius. She still didn’t regret it, it seemed like one less thing her parents could take away from her. She felt somewhat fond of Montparnasse, enjoyed it when they were on robberies together. She warned him to leave town just before she delivered the evidence to the police station, and made sure to cut him out of it. His father, Babet, was not so lucky.

It had been Babet that had pushed Éponine and Marius to finally report to the police, a day after Éponine’s sixteenth birthday. They had been waiting for a big case; had hoped to send the police a tip to catch the Thenardiers in the act of robbing some bank or philanthropist. However, Éponine had been eavesdropping in the hallway outside her parents’ office when she heard it –

“Look, Thenardier, you’ve been promising that I’d get to fuck the girl for ages. When will you follow through?” Babet.

“She’s young, she’s flighty,” that was her mother’s wheedling voice. Éponine felt the nausea rise in her throat. “We need to convince her, get her in the right mindset. Won’t that make it so much better when you succeed?”

“If I succeed,” Babet growled. “I think that the bitch is a lost cause.”  
“There’s always drugs,” that was her father. “Nah, it’s not good that way.” Éponine could see red. She had been hoping to overhear a planned bank heist, not a planned rape. She was attempting to focus on taking deep breaths and concentrating on how long her parents were going to spend in jail when Babet spoke again. “What about the younger one? She’s not half bad looking.”

“That’s certainly a possibility. What are you willing to pay?” Éponine did not stay to hear the rest of it. She paused the voice memo that had been recording and moved faster than she had ever moved in her life. She was out her window and on the way to Marius’s house before she could even think twice. She swung through his window and it took Marius one look at her face before he shut his laptop, setting aside whatever he’s working on.

“Azelma?” He said. She nodded, not trusting herself to keep an even tone. “Let’s go.” No questions asked. He grabbed the evidence they had compiled and unlocked the car door in a single motion. When she sat in the seat next to him, he reached out and grabbed her hand. He didn’t let go the entire time they were at the police station, and reassumed it through every step of the trial. In retrospect, this may have been the first time that the whims of the housing gods were on Éponine’s side – she wasn’t sure how she would have survived that time without Marius Pontmercy’s help.

When the dust settled, Éponine was an emancipated minor with a tiny apartment only a few minutes away from her high school. Her siblings were placed together in a safe foster home – one that Marius had skipped school to vet when Éponine had a major test on the same day. Éponine didn’t have the heart to question how her apartment was being paid for, but she had a feeling as to whose checking account the checks were coming out of.

How could you not be in love with someone after all that?

They did not live next to each other any more, but Marius came to Éponine’s place nearly every day. They studied together. Éponine was with Marius when he checked his email to learn he had been accepted into his dream school. He had turned to her, eyes shining.

“Ep, I’m going. I’m going to go, and I’m going to be pre-law, and I’m going to become a social justice lawyer,” he explained. “I’m going to make sure that people who need assistance can access the help they need in tricky legal situations.” Éponine had been vaguely aware of his dream in some abstract capacity, but she had never heard him speak about it like this. “I’m going to fucking make sure that nobody ever has to wait for three or four years of evidence collection like you did, just to ensure that the bad guys are definitely seen as such.”

“Congratulations, Pontmercy,” she had said, ruffling his hair. He grinned at her.

“Thank you,” he said. “For trusting me when we were younger. And for being my friend, now.” Éponine had to hide her face at that, tears welling up at the ridiculousness of him thanking her for this.

“I’m going to fucking miss you,” she said, trying to cover it. “Who knows when we’ll get to be around each other again like this.” Marius had actually laughed.

“Don’t be stupid,” he responded. “Just apply next year. You’ll get in. You can come with me.”

She did.


End file.
